With Outstretched Fingers
by angerwasallihad
Summary: Roslin/Adama shaking hands. "The first time, everyone knew it was a slight. The way he glanced down at her extended hand without comment and pushed through, leading the way down the corridor." An angsty, rather painful Christmas present fic for presidentroslin over on Tumblr.


**AN: This is a slightly belated Christmas present for presidentroslin over on Tumblr. The title is an ode to my favorite piece of Aaron Sorkin writing, in case you are unfamiliar. With that, I bid you good luck. Enjoy!**

**_With Outstretched Fingers_**

**_angerwasallihad_**

_Laura's hands were shaking again. Perhaps again was not quite the right word. They had not stopped in days. He had seen them trembling in her lap, seen the way her entire body seemed to shake without provocation and mistaken it for cold, wrapping a blanket around her torso before he settled down beside her. Or perhaps it had not been a mistake. Just an effort to do __**something**_ _for her. _

_She lowered a pair of binoculars from her eyes now with those shaky hands. _

"_Wait-I want to see more detail." _

_Trembling fingers pushed her glasses back onto her face before pulling the binoculars back up once more. She could feel his eyes on her intently as she took a last long look at the four-legged creatures in the distance, but she did not trust herself to look at him yet. She coughed rather feebly as she lowered the binoculars at last and finally turned to look at him, attempting to be reassuring. _

_Laura felt both of his hands close around hers, his fingers laced between her own cold and shaking ones, his palms enclosing her entire hand. _

_And at last, her hand stilled. _

_It seemed almost as if her hand had always been at home in his. But she knew it had not. _

The first time, everyone knew it was a slight. The way he glanced down at her extended hand without comment and pushed through, leading the way down the corridor.

But Laura merely sighed, arranging her face into a silently unruffled expression. The Commander's unrepentantly condescending rudeness might have been amusing any other time. She might even be able to laugh about it one day. Well, if she had any more days devoid of cancer and doctors and the dark shadow of her mother's slow death stalking her. But not today.

Laura let her hand drop back to her side with a quiet sigh and set off after him down the corridor.

"Commander, the President and I would like to address the issue of computer-guided navigation throughout the ship for the visitors. They could be an invaluable tool for educating the visitors, but also facilitate basic maneuvering. It tells people things as simple as where the restroom is-"

"It's an integrated computer network," he cut in without preamble. "And I will not have it aboard this ship."

So the rumors were true. He was one of _those._

"I heard you were one of those people," she replied, both amused and annoyed. "You're actually afraid of computers."

At Laura's words, he finally stopped and answered the accusation without heat. "No, there are many computers aboard this ship. But they're not networked."

She sighed. "A computer that has a network would simply make it faster and easier for the teachers to teach-"

"Let me explain something to you," he cut her off again, and she let out another sigh of frustration. "Many good men and women lost their lives aboard this ship," the Commander said calmly, "because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. I'm sorry if I'm inconveniencing you and the teachers, but I will not allow a networked computerized system to be placed on this ship while I am in command. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir," she said, shaking her head in frustration, mild sarcasm lacing her words.

"_It's...a very beautiful world," Laura said eventually, every word an effort. Does it have a name?" _

"_Earth," Bill replied without irony. _

The second time was awkward.

Laura did not know how to behave around them all as she descended, surrounded by men and women in uniform all standing at attention. They must all think her a fraud, she decided. But not half as much a fraud as she herself felt in this environment. They did not know what all she was withholding.

Not yet.

His presence was not reassuring. The Commander refused to meet her eyes and once again ignored her extended hand, instead standing at attention, a gloved hand poised in salute. Was it intentional? All the pomp and ceremony in an effort to clearly point out how distinctly she _did not_ belong and he did? She had not decided yet. And he was quite infuriatingly impassive.

She would much rather just shake his hand.

_She chuckled shakily, smiling at him in amusement. The laugh fell rather flat, with so little energy to maintain it. "It's not Earth," she wheezed out._

The third time was silent.

Laura was not handcuffed, but she wondered if maybe he thought she should be. It was not a moment for shaking hands. She knew that. She did not extend one as he ordered the cell door to be opened. But she refused to break look away first.

And so she stepped over the threshold and into the cell, turning back to face him as the bars slid into place between them. And she reached out in the only way she could. Steadily, unflinchingly meeting his eyes.

_Bill squeezed her hand between his. "Earth is a dream. One we've been chasing a long time. We've earned it. This is Earth." _

_Her breaths came out shallower and shakier as he spoke, and she gasped a little with each painful inhale of air. So many things had been worth fighting about. This, now, at the end, was not worth challenging. Let this be Earth._

The next time, it was unexpected.

For quite a while she had just watched silently, shivering in her coat among the trees as he walked slowly to greet them all. She had left a dying, angry, stubborn military man up there on that ship. He had been angrier than she had anticipated such an infuriatingly imperturbable stoic. He had been condescending, uninterested, and on one occasion downright dismissive. But a grudging respect had developed slowly. Until his anger at her recent actions had blown it out of the water.

He was unquestionably different, now.

"You interfered with a military mission, and you broke your word to me."

He spoke without any of the heat Laura expected from him.

"It's the second part that _really_ bothers you, isn't it?"

She had removed her glasses and watched him now without any barrier between their eyes. It was as intimate a conversation as she could imagine, and yet they were not touching.

"Laura, I forgive you."

She smiled appreciatively as she returned, "Thank you, Bill. But I didn't ask for your forgiveness."

He didn't seem to mind.

"Well you have it anyway."

Something changed between them in that moment, and Laura knew they both felt it. He was different now, she was right about that. But she was different, too. These months had changed them both irrevocably, she thought as the conversation moved past their present conflict. There was not going back. But she was not sure she really wanted to.

"Maybe your impulse was right, the day the Cylons attacked. Maybe we should have stayed and fought. Maybe the President of the Colonies should have stayed with her people."

For the first time, Bill's voice was sharp.

"I didn't come here for this. I didn't come here to navel-gaze, or to catalogue our mistakes. We made a decision to leave the colonies after the attack. We made the decision. It was the right one then, and it's the right one now." His eyes bored into her intensely as he continued, "So every moment of every day since then? ...Is a gift."

"From the Gods," Laura supplied softly.

"No," he replied without pause, "From you. For convincing me that I should go."

Her eyes widened in shock at his words and she was unable to respond for a long moment while he continued to enumerate the lives she had saved.

"And now," he finished, "I think it's time to go find this tomb of yours."

As he passed her the book, their eyes met and she saw something else there. She reached to take it from him, a sort of handshake wherein there hands never touched. The moment lingered, and she found a name for what she saw there.

Bill.

"_Okay, then. Earth. It's fine." _

_She could live with that. She could die with that, too. The latter seemed the more likely scenario, Laura thought as she fought for breath quietly. _

The fifth time, it was painful.

New Caprica had been hard on her. Harder than she herself had realized. She moved gingerly toward him, descending from the raptor slowly. The excitement of the last few days finally catching up with her body. She could feel his eyes boring into her, but avoided his gaze. The strain of the last few months finally catching up with her mind. As she neared the edge, his hand appeared beneath her lowered eyes, a silent offer.

Laura ignored it.

Stepping down independently to a round of applause from the crew and officers assembled there, she finally met Bill's eyes with a small smile. His hand swung awkwardly at his side. He was thinking of extending it again, she knew; but was glad when he didn't. His eyes raked over her, taking in the dust still clinging to her hair, face, and hands. The drawn expression on her face. The careful way she moved. His hand moved towards her again, and her eyes dropped uncomfortably. He stopped, passing the movement off as a detour on the way to scratching his nose.

Finally-

"It's good to see you."

"You, too."

_One last chuckle escaped her lips before she gasped for air again, not quite desperately, but not very quietly anymore. _

"_I, uh… I'm… having trouble… breathing…" She looked back off into the distance, avoiding his gaze again and trying to take in all the beauty of this world before she had to leave it. _

_Every breath was a struggle as they sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, he spoke again. _

"_Would you like to get a better look at them?"_

_Laura looked from him to the animals in the distance dubiously, a bemused smile on her lips again. _

"_Yes… I'd lov-I'd love it," she eventually choked out, half chuckling, half coughing. "What… What d'you mean?" _

"_Watch," he replied simply, moving beside her and finally dropping her hand when he shifted to a squatting position next to her. _

_It started shaking in her lap again. _

_Bill had always been a man of action more than words, she thought as she tried to understand what he was getting at. "What? Why? What're you doing?" _

"_Watch me." He pulled the blanket down off of her legs and leant over her. _

"_What are you doing?" _

"_Put your arm around me. Can you?" _

_And he lifted, pulling the blanket with them as the two of them rose as one. Her body still shook with labored breathing in his arms as he walked, but her hands, holding tight to him, became still again. He was always so steady beneath her hands. _

Space was cold. Laura had done her fair share of traveling between worlds. On an intellectual level, she understood the cold void of space. The way there could be no heat without an atmosphere to contain it, no light without clouds for it to reflect from. She understood all of that. But the few hours she'd spent on passenger ships between destinations could not have prepared her for the constant cold of _living_ in space.

She shivered ever so slightly as she stepped over the threshold into his quarters. Looking around curiously, she was rather taken aback. This room was not full of the steely military efficiency she had observed in every other area of the ship she had visited. It was unmistakably a _home_. There was a lived-in quality to it, with little to none of the shining metal surfaces in the rest of the ship. There was art on the bits of wall not covered with books, wooden tables and large rugs, all permeated by the smell of the pages and pages stacked along the shelves and walls. _And it was warm._ For the first time, Laura did not have to clench her hands to keep them from shivering in the cold.

At his rather terse words about the decision to leave the fight behind them, she held back her prepared speech, searching for a different tack.

"There's no Earth," she said quietly, but leaving no room for contradiction. "You made it all up."

He did not look remotely abashed. Did not even attempt to defend himself. Laura did not understand this man, who seemed unwilling to discuss things in the way to which she was accustomed. Freely and willingly admitting a mistake without any discussion of it, a man who spoke in as few words as possible with no intention of explaining himself. And not even an attempt to disguise his dislike of her. Not because she was a woman, she decided as they spoke, but because she was a civilian. That was it. He was _not_ a politician. And it was disconcerting.

"It's not enough to just live," he said now. "You have to have something to live for. Let it be Earth."

She got to her feet slowly as she processed his words, searching for a new way to negotiate with this man who did not behave in the way that she was used to. He talked of hope and survival in a way that spoke volumes about his investment in this new society, but seemed so separate from it. So carefully, she put forth her last-ditch negotiating effort.

"If this civilization is going to function, it's going to need a government. A civilian government run by the President of the Colonies."

He got to his feet at last. "So you'll be in charge of the fleet, but military decisions stay with me."

"Yes."

"Then I'll think about it, Madam President."

Their eyes locked in an intense and calculating gaze as their hands met for the first time. The use of her title finally and the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know.

She had won.

_She drifted in and out of consciousness as Bill carried her slowly across the grassy field. With every difficult, shallow breath, her eyes would snap open. After what could have been minutes, or possibly hours, she felt him step up onto a hard surface. Her eyes fluttered open as he carried her into what she immediately recognized as a Raptor. He turned left on the threshold, lifting and shifting her slightly until finally settling her into a seat in the cockpit. _

"_What… What are we doing?" she whispered slowly as he tucked the blanket around her again. _

"_Just watch me." He squeezed her hand before stepping back behind her again._

It was nice to stand in a room full of people on a festive occasion again. The jazzy music made such a nice change from all the silent funerals and desperate speeches she'd been doomed to for months now.

"Madam President. Good evening."

Laura looked up in surprise at the Commander, decked out in what she was coming to recognize as his formal attire. She had not expected to find him here, let alone that he might come and speak to her independently.

"I thought you hated these things."

She was teasing him a little. He seemed awkward and uncomfortable, which was slightly amusing.

"It's Colonial Day," The Commander replied simply. "Where else would I be? I'm a Patriot." He didn't match her teasing tone, all seriousness and professionalism. She was not sure he had ever learned how to joke.

"You really are, aren't you?"

He moved on, looking across the room at her new Vice President. "Dr. Baltar… Interesting choice."

All teasing gone from her face now, she turned to him seriously. "I figured… The devil you know."

The Commander nodded thoughtfully. "Politics. As exciting as war. Definitely as dangerous."

Laura smiled slightly indulgently, following his gaze over to Baltar on the dance floor. "Though in war," she said lightly, "you only get killed once. In politics, it can happen over and over again."

"You're still standing."

She tore her eyes away from the dancers, back to the Commander at his words.

"So are you."

"And I can dance," he replied with a rare ghost of a smile.

She was not quite sure what to make of his last comment, until his torso moved in an uncharacteristically jazzy way. The unexpected humor caught her off-guard, and she laughed, finally catching his meaning and taking his offered arm as he led them out among the dancers. His hand caught hers as they assumed the position, moving together to the music without much conversation. His hand held hers gently, not so lightly that she could not feel its warmth, but just tight enough to deliver a soft push or pull in concert with his arm against her back while he guided her across the floor.

He kept her hand in his until the song ended and he lead her back to her seat.

She shivered when he finally dropped it, taken once more by the cold of space in his absence.

_And so she watched him. Well, she tried to. His words to Kara and Lee outside were lost to her. Laura's hands were shaking again under the blanket, and her mind wandered to other things. _

"I know that as long as Cain lives, your very survival is at risk, I know that."

Laura leaned forward on the couch in a small fit of coughs, her unspoken words hanging between them.

_And I don't want you to die, too._

She felt his hand come around her back, a gesture of support as she coughed weakly into one hand. He pushed a glass of water under her mouth as the fit subsided, and she drank gratefully.

Taking the glass back and easing her gently into her previous position on the couch, he whispered, "What can I get you?"

She smiled up at him, the twinkle of a joke in her eyes. "A new body. Perhaps one of those young Cylon models from the Resurrection Ship."

"I can't see you as a blond."

"You'd be surprised," she whispered, still a little teasing through her exhaustion.

Bill watched her for a long moment, finally holding his hand out to her. Laura took it without hesitation, both of them squeezing silently. She knew he did not quite know what to say. But he did not need to. His hand in hers was enough.

_Her eyes found Kara and Lee again as Bill found his seat beside her in the cockpit. She stopped asking where they were going. She thought she knew now. Smiling down at them for what she knew would be the last time, she pressed her hand to the glass between them as she rose, a small gesture of farewell. _

"I have a feeling she'd lay her life down for it."

"A feeling?"

The CIC was dark, the tea in her hand not quite masking the bitterness of the Chamalla in her mouth. Laura's irritation bit through her next words. Irritation that had been bubbling beneath the surface for weeks now, not at him but at the terrible circumstances, bursting out of her mouth with a snap.

"It's more than a feeling, alright? Why-just do it!"

As soon as the words reached her ears, she regretted the tone, backpedaling immediately before walking away. "It doesn't hurt to ask."

Laura stood alone behind the glass panel for a moment, frustrated at herself for snapping in front of everyone; for the way she felt on edge all the time now; the fuzziness the drug in her tea brought on; the silent seething at _that_ _thing_ down in the brig and everything that came with him.

She felt Bill approach from behind and turned, stepping toward him as he held out his hands. Hers slipped easily into them, and she sighed deeply while he waited silently.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

He nodded. "Take a break?"

Nearly snapping at him all over again, she reigned herself in and shook her head.

"I'm fine."

_His hands were busy, flying the Raptor as low and as close to the ground as he could manage. Her eyes were glued to the landscape outside. The colorful birds, the four-legged animals running just beneath them, the glitter of the water in the sun. Her hands clutched the blanket around her. They still moved almost imperceptibly, a near-invisible sign of the life flowing out of her with each moment._

The Memorial Wall stretched out before her. It always took her by surprise, this visual reminder of all the people lost, only a small fraction of the majority of humanity who had died since it all began. Most of the time all that death felt so far away. She had lost people in the initial attack, but the people who truly mattered had been long gone. The only person she truly mourned was Billy. But this wall of pictures, such a personal reminder of the people lost… It chilled her. Every time.

A Six pulled back from a patch of wall on the corridor, separate from the rest, and she stopped, Bill following suit.

"I didn't know they were doing that."

Walking over to get a closer look, she held her hand out to Bill without looking behind her at him. His hand met hers, and she pulled them both along to scrutinize the wall of dead Cylons in front of them. It was casual, the way she reached for his hand these days. She knew it would be there, just behind her. She trusted it.

Even knowing that hers would not always be there for him to take.

_With a long, contented sigh, she whispered, "So much… life." _

_Bill was saying something next to her, but she never quite heard it. At last, at long last, her hands stilled, dropping from the blanket around her, one falling to her lap while the other fell to the seat between Laura's body and Bill. _

_He stayed with her there for a long time, his fingers laced tightly between hers, his ring now on her finger and cutting into his own skin. Bill's hands were shaking now, hers cold and still in both of his. _

_Unable to leave her in the Raptor, he lifted her into his arms again, carrying her to the high place he had seen from the air. His hand left hers only to dig the grave, squeezing it one last long time before lowering her into the ground. _

"You know, I always wanted to go into space. Race out into that undiscovered country, to find something new." The alcohol and weed had made him slightly fuzzy outside in the dark. More prone to talking in some way.

She hummed softly, the vibration tickling a little where her face was resting on his shoulder. Lifting the hand that had been covering hers on his chest, he pointed out at the sky above them.

"I look at those stars out there, and they're new."

He felt her nod beside him, her own hand stretching upwards now too.

"Makes you want to race out there all over again," she said softly.

Her hand drifted down again, coming back to rest on his chest. His followed suit, no longer reaching, instead lightly covering hers.

"Almost," he whispered.

**AN: Thanks for reading everyone, especially those of you who made it to the end. Reviews are very much appreciated!**


End file.
